Anthropology Wiki Questions
1. Pre-Fall: Man was equally able to will to sin or to will not to sin. Post-Fall/Pre-Regenerate: Man is not able to do anything but sin. Post-Fall/Post-Regeneration: The believer is able to will to sin, but in Christ, the believer is also able to will to resist sinning. Glory: The believer will not only be free from temptation, but the believer will be totally unable to sin whatsoever. 2. Absolute Determinism: Man is unable to will. He's will is determined by prior events or by divine hand, and man is not responsible for his sins. Compatiblist Freedom: A person does exactly what he or she wants to do, except his desires are determined by his heart. God gives us our hearts so God superintends all of our actions. When God gives us new life, he places a new heart of flesh in our chest. God gradually chips away at the old heart of stone. Absolute Libertarian Freedom: Human will is absolutely free and autonomous in every area. This view reduces the sovereignty of God to mere goodwill. Limited Libertarian Freedom: Man is totally free in matters of soteriology, but God arranges the events of history. I believe the Compatiblist Freedom view is the best view for a Christian. It makes God sovereign and also explains the reason man seems to have free choice. 3. Tselem represents our likeness to God. Demuth explains the likeness of our characteristics to God. The third term is pasul, which discusses the physical aspect of man. The three practical implications of this is that man received communicable attributes of God, the doctrine of Imitatio Dei (we are expected to practice God's attributes in life), and we have inherent dignity (we bear the image of God and have dignity). 4. Dichotomistic view says man is made up of his intellect (personality) and the whole of the being. Trichotomy says man is divided into the body, mind, and spirit. I lean toward the trichotomistic view. I believe the spirit is separate from personality, intelligence, and emotional aspects of a person. 5. Pre-existianism - largely influenced by the Greeks, is the view that God created all souls from the beggining of time and simple depostis the sould their bodies when the appropriate time comes. Has the weakness of God not being as personable. Traducianism - this view posits that the people are propagated as whole beings, with both body and soul derived from the parents. The body does not produce the soul any more than the soul produces the body--"That which is born of the flesh is flesh, and that which is born of the spirit is spirit." Just as God is still the Creator of the body, mediately through the parents, He is still the Creator of the soul, but mediately through the parents. Creationism - View holds that God creates a new soul every time a female's egg is ferilized, essentially working a miracle of creation ex-nihilo with conception of every child. Presents the weakness that DNA has nothing to do with it and leaves the idea that children will likely be nothing in personality like their parents unless God specifically does it. 6. A covenant is a binding agreement or obligation that one makes to another. The word derives from the Hebrew word berith. This covenant was typically sealed by blood. The two parties that are involved in the covenant are reprasented by a Covenant Mediator which typically speaks or act on the behalf of another. 7. A Perpetual Covenant is often held by many theologians to be a covant between Adam and God that would last indefinently. As long as Adam and Eve refraimed from eating of the fruit, they were promised life forever. Those who argue for the perpetual argument say that in Genesis 2 account, there is nothing that implies anything different than a perpetual covenant. A Probationary Covenant is held by a majority of scholars that states Adam and Eve were succesful in resisting the tempation brought on by the serpent, then they would immediately be glorified, skipping over all of the pain and suffering of redemptive history. 8. Jesus was tempted in the same specific way that Adam and Eve were tempted, yet Jesus proved succesful where Adam failed. There were three ways in which Jesus and Adam were similarily tempted. Satan tried to get Jesus to turn a rock into bread (food), to bow in submission to the Devil (idolatry), and to doubt God's word by throwing hismelf off of the high point of the temple (doubting God's veracity). Jesus essentially is proving himself faithful, succesfully facing the same tempatations that caused Adam to stumble, yet not stumbling. Thus, scrioutre refers to Jesus as the "Second Adam"-becoming the mediator for us in Adam's place. 9. Original sin is the sin of Adam and Eve and consists of the guilt of Adam and Eve being passed down and is the reason for our disposition toward sin. Actual sin, however, is the actions which every person specifically does which contradict God's standard of perfection; in other words, it is the sin of each individual. 10. The Doctrine of Total Depravity states that every part of our being has been affected by sin and is thus warped and unable to point us in a direction that leads to God unless God first works a change in us. The Pelagians object to this by saying that all men are born morally neutral and learn their sin or goodness from observing those around them. The Wesleyan objection is that the work of Jesus on the cross brought Prevenient Grace which lifts the effects of Original Sin on the will of men making it possible for a person to choose to become a Christian. The Roman Catholics disagree with the Doctrine of Total Depravity by saying that if one is baptized in the Roman Catholic Church, the effects of Original Sin are washed away and it is possible to live a righteous life. 11. Covenantal theologians argue that the various covenantal agreements are all aspects of the Covenant of Grace, revealed progressively though history; there is more of a discontinuity in Classic Dispensationalism while the Covenantal approach emphasizes continuity. Meanwhile, Progressive Dispensationalists have a more progressive model than the Classic Dispensationalists which emphasizes continuity of the covenants; however, they still believe that Old Testament Israel and the Christian Church are two separate entities and that the Church is not a continuation of Israel. 12. The Protoevangelion comes in Genesis 3:15 where the Bible provides the first statement of the Covenant of Grace. It is important because it provides the most basic element of the Covenant of Grace with God promising to send Eve a deliverer to crush the serpent and end the effects of sin (alluding to Jesus). 13. There has been much debate about what our glorified bodies will be like. There will be some continuity as evidenced by the fact that when Jesus was glorified, He was still recognizable, He still ate, and He still had His scars from the cross. However, there will also be discontinuity as is seen when the glorified Christ suddenly appears and disappears in locked rooms and is not immediately recognizable.